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rabble blogs are the personal pages of some of Canada's most insightful progressive activists and commentators. All opinions belong to the writer; however, writers are expected to adhere to our guidelines. We welcome new bloggers -- contact us for details.

Canada Day is a great time to support independent media: Join rabble today!

"If we are serious about democracy, we will need to reform the media system structurally... this reform will have to be part of a broader movement to democratize all the core institutions of society." ~Robert McChesney

Canada Day is a fantastic opportunity to reflect on freedom and democracy. Who has what freedoms and why? How can Canada become more democratic, more representative? How do we promote democratic change?

Tough questions, but one clear response to that last question is through a strong, interactive, independent media - media not owned, controlled or heavily influenced by the State; media not owned, controlled or heavily influenced by for-profit corporations.

What Canada needs is community media; media by and about communities fighting for change. What Canada needs is rabble.ca. What rabble.ca needs is you.

Be a patriot for independent media and join the community of people supporting rabble.ca. Our goal is 500 new members ($5/month) during our membership drive, which ends in just a few days.

The good news is that we're not simply calling for your support; we also have a fantastic "thank you" gift to offer.

Become a member and you can select a great free print magazine subscription as our thanks. What can you choose from? Adbusters, Alberta Views, Briarpatch, Canadian Dimension, Geist, Middle East Report, New Internationalist, Shameless, This Magazine, and Our Times. If you contribute at least $8/month we will also give you our new collection, Best of rabble.ca 2011."

PLUS! You can win a subscription to one of these great magazines! Today, share a Canada Day message on Twitter about why you support rabble, or retweet rabble's membership drive tweets and you can win.

We are giving away two free subscriptions: one in a draw from those who RT our stuff on Canada Day, and the other to the person whose tweet about rabble's membership drives gets the most direct retweets (we'll draw if it's a tie).

More people are reading rabble.ca than ever and unlike many news organizations, we have never put up a paywall – at rabble we’ve always believed in making our reporting and analysis free to all. But media isn’t free to produce. rabble’s total budget is likely less than what big corporate media spend on photocopying (we kid you not!) and we do not have any major foundation, sponsor or angel investor. Our only supporters are people and organizations -- like you. This is why we need your help.

If everyone who visits rabble and likes it chipped in a couple of dollars per month, our future would be much more secure and we could do much more: like the things our readers tell us they want to see more of: more staff reporters and more work to complete the upgrade of our website.

We’re asking if you could make a donation, right now, to set rabble on solid footing in 2017.